


A Near Go

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV), WODEHOUSE P. G. - Works
Genre: Gen, Jim Ellison (off camera), crack pretty much because what else could it be, jeeves (off camera), madeline basset (off camera), oh and newts, or other unexplained weirdness, seriously mismatched timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-24
Updated: 2010-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-29 06:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18772984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Blair eavesdrops on a conversation between Bertie Wooster and Gussie Fink-Nottle.





	A Near Go

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday offering for very dear sallymn.
> 
> Beta'ed by the wonderful janedavitt.
> 
> (If there is any point to be found in this fic at all, it will totally only appear to the rabid Wooster fan who is thoroughly up on Fink-Nottles and the perils of an unattached Madeline Basset. And newts. :-))

This was heaven. Or close to it, even if it was a little heartless to feel this happy while Jim was still back in the hotel room stretched out on the bed with the curtains closed and his ear plugs in and a bottle of aspirin at hand, recuperating from 5000 miles' worth of the friendly skies of United. But Jim could nap — or, as he seemed to prefer, kvetch about the effects of jet travel on his senses — just fine all by himself, and they could start their official London vacation together tomorrow morning. And by leaving Jim to his napping and kvetching this afternoon Blair was actually doing him a favor. The more bookstores Blair checked out today on his own, the fewer he'd have to drag Jim into during the rest of the week, after all.

The bookstore he was in right now wasn't on his carefully researched Top Ten list, but it'd been impossible to walk past it without checking it out anyway. And there was some interesting material, once you worked your way through the display tables of current stuff and into the tall maze of shelves at the back of the shop. He didn't really have time to look at everything himself, though, much as he wanted to, so he cornered the nearest person who looked reasonably employee-like.

"Hi, how you doing?" he said to the rather stiff-faced guy. That didn't get the conversational ball rolling, unfortunately, but Blair had never let that stop him before. "You work here, right? That's great. You have anything by Richard Burton? The explorer, I mean, not the —" He paused mid-question, thanks to a noise in the background of the otherwise quiet bookshop, a noise that could only be described as a bleat.

"Gussie," the bleat had sounded like, which seemed improbable. A further bleat seemed to clinch it, though, as what was now clearly a voice went on, "Small world, eh, Gussie? I mean, you looking for a book and me looking for a book and both of us ending up in the same book dispensary at the same moment. To trot out one of Jeeves' pet gags, a strange concatenation of events. How go the newts?"

Newts? Was that the name of a team? It would have to be a cricket team; 'newts' sounded too wimpy for rugby. Or for soccer — or was that 'footer'? Although the sport that the word 'footer' brought to Blair's mind was more the kind you played under the table with your shoes off and an interested pair of feet and ankles on the receiving end, working your way up — ideally — towards an interested and receptive —

"Wooster."

Okay, there went _that_ thought. But 'Wooster' — was that 'Wooster'? Or was it 'Worchester'? Or 'Rooster', and Gussie was of the Elmer Fudd school of pronunciation? Whichever it was, Gussie — or Blair assumed it was Gussie, anyway — didn't sound all that thrilled, although whether that was due to having to talk to somebody who sounded like he imitated sheep for a living or due to having to answer to a name like 'Gussie' was hard to tell.

The voice presumably belonging to Gussie added, "You're here to buy a copy of Madeline's book, aren't you, you back-stabbing, home-wrecking lowlife of a Wooster? And then I suppose you'll tell her how wonderful it is and how wonderful _she_ is, and make me look like a heel."

"Book? You don't mean to say Madeline's written a book?" Wooster's voice squeaked on the last word, which seemed kind of hard on the poor guy. Bleating was bad enough without adding squeaking to the mix.

"You're standing right in front of the display," said Gussie, coldly.

"' _God's Little Daisy Chain of Stars_ '?" That came out in a squeak, too, and Blair couldn't really blame Wooster for it, not if that was the title of the book. Madeline, whoever she was, must be on the overly cutesy side. Or maybe it was her editor's fault.

"Sir? I said, I believe we have a copy of _Wanderings in West Africa_ in the back. If you would care to wait, I'll bring it out for you."

Blair started. "What?" Oh. He'd forgotten the clerk. He smiled at the guy. "Right. Sure. Thanks." He didn't need a copy of that one unless it was a particularly valuable edition, and if it was a particularly valuable edition, he probably couldn't afford it. But it was always good to check out any Burton he could find; sometimes a previous owner left notes in the margins, and he'd gotten several useful research leads that way.

The clerk vanished around the corner of the row of shelves and Blair turned his attention back to the voices coming from the front of the store.

"Fink-Nottle." Wooster sounded stern, or as stern as a voice like that could probably ever sound — and holy crap, 'Fink-Nottle'? "Why would my saying anything about Madeline's book," and Blair could almost hear a shudder run through Wooster at the word 'book', "make you look like a heel? Don't tell me you two lovebirds have developed an r. in the l.?"

"An r. in the l.?" Gussie sounded as blank as Blair felt at Wooster's question, although Blair wasn't sure how much of his own blankness was based on the fact that he was still trying to deal with 'Fink-Nottle'. Holy crap.

"Another one of Jeeves'," Wooster said. "Means rift in the lute, if I've got it right. Trouble in paradise, two hearts tearing asunder, all that kind of bally thing."

"Well, why didn't you just say so, Bertie?" Gussie seemed to be finished with blank and ready for a second round of less-than-thrilled. "Madeline refused to remove a reference in her book which was completely uncalled for, touching on the character of newts in an unjustified and unflattering manner, and if the lute — lute, you said? —happens to be rift at the moment, it's jolly well all her fault."

If it hadn't seemed so unlikely Blair would've thought the next sound he heard was a gulp. But unless you were Jim you couldn't hear a gulp across a room; people just didn't gulp that loudly — and that was something Blair felt pretty expert on, having done a somewhat embarrassing amount of gulping since he'd met up with Jim.

Hey, wait…what had Gussie said? 'Bertie'? That went well with the bleat.

"Love conquers all things, as I've heard Jeeves say. You should be the bigger man and let bygones be bygones, Gussie." Wooster — Bertie — did, in fact, sound like someone who might've just gulped. He also sounded like he was trying to seem persuasive instead of desperate, which was a situation Blair had found himself in at least as often as he'd found himself gulping, and he felt a pang of sympathy for Bertie. Why Bertie should be so desperate about Madeline and Gussie possibly being on the outs was a mystery, but Blair still had to feel for the guy.

Bertie went on, still clearly going for persuasive, "Anyway, I'm sure Madeline didn't mean it. She dotes on newts."

Okay, 'newts' was beginning to sound less like a cricket team and more like actual _newts_. Which Madeline doted on. And Gussie defended the honor of. And Jim was seriously not going to believe this conversation. Man, where was a tape recorder when you needed one? Well, Blair knew where one was, since he kept one in his backpack, but he'd left it at the hotel. Last time he did _that_ while they were in London.

"She did say I took it out of context." Gussie sounded less indignant, maybe even a little hopeful, and Blair could almost feel the unseen Bertie's relief.

Which was ridiculous — not the relief part but the unseen part; why was he standing back here just listening when he could be at the front of the store seeing what a Bertie Wooster and a Gussie Fink-Nottle looked like in the flesh? You just didn't waste opportunities like this. Life was too short.

Blair started down the row of shelves towards the corner, wondering whether he could somehow pull off butting into their conversation and laying on the charm enough to talk Bertie and Gussie into going back to the hotel with him for a beer or something. The hotel had a decent bar. And Jim _had_ to meet them.

"Your Burton, sir." This time Blair didn't jump at the clerk's voice even though it clashed with Bertie's, which seemed to be saying something about buying Gussie a couple of gallons of orange juice.

Presumably — or at least it wouldn't surprise Blair at this point — for the newts. Or with them.

Jim was _never_ going to believe this conversation.

And he was never going to get to meet Bertie and Gussie, either. Blair rounded the last corner of the shelves and found the front of the store completely empty of other customers, which meant completely empty of Woosters and Fink-Nottles.

Crap.

Jim really wasn't going to _believe_ —

Whoa — what the heck was he thinking? He knew Jim. He knew Jim really, really well. And Jim never let an opportunity pass.

And if he told Jim about Bertie and Gussie, there wasn't enough bribery or blackmail on earth to keep Jim from calling him "Newt" for the next forty years. Or, worse, 'Fink-Nottle'. _Crap_.

Blair sighed and sat down and started leafing through the Burton. So he wasn't going to tell Jim; better safe, in this case, than sorry.

Besides, Jim would never have believed him anyway.  
   
   
   


 


End file.
